When we were on our way to the beach earlier this month, 4 hours into a long, boring drive, Will said, “Are you in the mood for some crazy talk?”
YES. Always. (INFP.)Â
He went on to tell me about a farm for sale a little bit outside our town’s city limits.
What would I think–and remember, we’re talking Crazy Talk–about living there for a year? Just so we could know what it’s like, nothing permanent. We’d experience rural life, plant a big garden, satisfy our farm-obsessed daughter.
The farm–complete with quaint farmhouse–was pretty darn cheap. We could rent our house, buy the farm, move to the country. Our commutes wouldn’t even be that horrible. It could happen.
Would I be up for it?
Sure, I said. There’s not much I wouldn’t try, for just one year.Â
We talked about it some more, and we thought of some reasons it would be riskier than we’d like. (The big one: it’s easy enough to buy a farm, but much harder to sell one.)
But that real estate listing was a launching off point for a hundred-mile conversation about possibility:Â places we’d like to live, cities we’d like to experience, people we’d like to be near for a little while. For us, for our kids’ sakes.
We talked about Rachel and her family, how they quit their jobs and moved to Italy for a few months. We talked about Jessica, and her family’s plan to spend six weeks next summer in France (all six of them!). We talked about how Rachel pulled off her crazy plan, how Jessica’s planning for hers, and what our own version of a dream vacation/season/year might look like.
What did we decide on? Nothing conclusive.
But that’s okay: it wasn’t time to make the decisions or hammer out the details; it was time to talk a little crazy.
And we should do it more often.
Do you talk crazy sometimes? (Please say you do!) What do you talk about when you’re talking Crazy Talk?
53 comments
Thanks for the great post! Some of my favorite talks with my man have been of this variety. Discussions like these keep dreams alive and also help us to know one another on deeper levels and discover things about each other we may never have realized before.
I love that kind of talk! We talk big travels without kids, travels with kids, starting a school, making our house a B&B. And some of that is just talk in my head. 🙂
Yes! All the time! I love these conversations.
Yes! We love us some crazy talk. Currently we’re trying to
a)figure out how to live a month in Hawaii before my husband goes from working full time to school (again) full time, or…
b) take an airstream on the road up the West Coast.
Still dreaming!
Yes-our crazy talk led us to buy a motorhome and tour the country for a year. Four months in, with our family of six and our dog, and we love it!
Oh, WOW! Do you blog about that, Katie? I would love to read more.
I do, more as a journal, nothing spectacular. http://Www.afamilygoodtime.com
We just road tripped 2500 miles with our three kids in a small car and you are living what our crazy talk on that trip has led us to explore doing! If you are blogging it I’d love to read it too!!
Dale and I have discussed starting a subsistence farm, and I keep insisting on visiting England at some point (and Scotland-I want to visit my clan’s house/museum there). My brother just returned from England bragging about visiting Sherwood Forest and such and now I’m seething with jealousy!
Yep. http://naturalmomstalkradio.com/blog/crazy-together/
Then we conceived our seventh. 🙂
I like crazy talk.
Hahaha! LOVE.
First crazy talk was quitting my job and moving 1100 miles from “home.” Best decision of my life and actually easier than I thought it might be. Crazy talk 2 is to go to Africa, but not just to do the safari, but to sleep in a treehouse on the savannah. Crazy talk 3 will be to move to CA. So many things that I’d like to do, but these are the ones I would deeply regret if I don’t make them happen.
Hey Tina, living in California ain’t crazy, it’s awesome! Come on out!
For me, the crazy part is the cost of living! Everything else is amazing.My biggest decision will be which part, San Fran, LA or San Diego.
I was born in SF and my wife grew up in San Diego, and I’ve visited LA a lot; I’d avoid moving to LA but perhaps that’s just my own preference. There are places near each that are not as expensive as living in the urban centers. But you’re right that it’s more expensive than living some other places.
As a life long dreamer, I adore conversations with crazy talk! Go for it!
We haven’t done anything too crazy, but we moved to a small, mountain town in Virginia where we honeymooned just BECAUSE. Because we were newlyweds with no kids and no mortgage and we could. Best 3 years of my life, so far 🙂 We had to move away last year (because now we DO have kids and that changes it all) but I’m always scheming up the next plan 🙂
I know this is not the type of crazy talk you are writing about here, Anne, but your post is timely in light of today’s 50 year anniversary of the March on Washington and MLK’s speech. He dreamed big, and I think some people thought back then that this was just crazy talk. Skin color doesn’t mean what some people try to make it mean, but I think we all have different color skin for a reason. Is that crazy talk?
Cheers,
Tim
Oooh! I love crazy talk! I find it so inspiring! I spent 3 years living and teaching in the Dominican Republic, and I definitely think we’ll move somewhere overseas again at some point now that we’re married. Someday! So fun to talk and daydream about!
Hi. This is like my FAVORITE SUBJECT EVER. I live in crazy talk land. This topic is my heart. 🙂 I sorta drive my husband coo-coo with all of my scheming.
This is like my FAVORITE COMMENT EVER. 😉 My heart too.
This is fascinating…its not my style to indulge in crazy talk. It scares me. Maybe I need to loosen up a bit (INTJ) and see the possibilities.
Hi Ana. I’m a crazy talk-loving INTJ. You can do it!! 🙂
After spending the day at the fair (we went to the turkey calling contest – it was a little like stumbling into an episode of Duck Dynasty…kind of fun!), I’d move to the farm with you 🙂
I want you guys to buy a farm! I have so many good memories of my grandparents’s farm.
My Crazy Talk led to my move to Nashville. And you already know what the current Crazy Talk is. We’ll see if that ends up happening. 🙂
Yes…we do this all the time. Especially now that we’ll be empty nesters in another year or so. We’re always talking about what we want our lives to look like during this next phase. We both love the thought of visiting different places – mostly stateside – for extended periods of time and really experiencing what it would be like to live there.
Buy the farm. You won’t regret it. Houses are a dime a dozen, they are everywhere. Farms aren’t, especially ones just outside your town that won’t kill your commute. 😉
We are moving in a month to a ranch in another state…not my choice. Hubby, however, is so super excited about it, and I can’t mess with his dream, right? Our crazy talk, though, is moving to Chile. Someday!
Buy the farm.
The other day, we’re driving into town and the hubs throws this question out there: What would you do if money were no object? I had my response out almost before he finished his question: Get the HECK outta Dodge!
Sometimes, we need to dream big. That simple question led to a much more serious discussion. It lead to dream sharing. It led to thinking outside the box, and if there’s one thing I love more than random questions, it’s outside of the box thinking.
Buy the farm. Write a book. I’ll edit your adventures. 😉
This INFJ has a really hard time with crazy talk. My husband and I struggle in this area. He is ALL about the crazy talk, and I am so not. As an INFJ, I think about things for a really long time and do a lot of research before I offer up an idea to anyone, and I always feel like I need to know that all the things have been thought through before someone shares an idea with me … in other words, I need to know that the crazy idea is not so crazy, but possible, doable, and responsible. But Matt is just the opposite. So I’ve really had to challenge myself in this area – and I’ll be honest, I’m not doing so hot right now with it – especially now that we’re talking about moving.
All eight of us. 😉 And I’m a little worried that my example is fodder for CRAZY TALK! How true it is….
I’m sixteen and an INFP, so pretty much ALL of my talk is crazy talk! I have (detailed and thoroughly researched) dreams about just about everything in my future, but I think the most detailed and thoroughly researched is moving to England- THAT would be a dream come true for me! 🙂
I loved to read about your crazy talk! I think I will try this with Dave. There are lots of places that would be beneficial to our boys and I to explore. Why not right?
Yep. We crazy talk…and crazy do-like moving to Scotland for 3 years! 🙂
For sure! I just thought it was normal though and never considered it as ‘crazy’. Perhaps that’s because early in our marriage my husband and I left Australia for England on a nine month working holiday and stayed for 7 years. How blessed are we that such crazy talk is in fact possible??!! I live in such a privileged part of the world!
My husband is a college professor, and when after tenure, he is eligible to apply for sabbatical. It’s a few years off, but we are considering moving to Italy for six months during his sabbatical!
We love crazy talks! Ours our pretty vague and open-ended still at this point, but all this crazy talk and dreaming has to lead to something, sometime!!
agh! “ours are” would make more sense. That’s what I get for commenting before 7am.
This is a great post. Thank you for inspiring me. It is definitely time for some crazy talk around here!
Oh yes, my husband and I love to “crazy talk” – we usually phrase it in the idea of “what awesome place should we retire?” or “where should our next major vacation be?” I like to take the crazy a step further sometimes and actually google the technicalities of said ideas – where are the best schools in and what are the homes like? What restaurants do people like in [exotic city] and what do the hotels look like? You get the idea.
Yes! Its why we quit a steady bank job, sold our mini van and moved across the country to Nova Scotia so my husband could get his degree in music and a position with an orchestra (still working on that one!) We also talk about talking two years to go around the world with our girls in about ten years.
And now, we all wait to see if you buy the farm or not. 😉
Oh, yes – we “talk crazy” all the time…and sometimes we leap! In 2011, we sold most everything and toured the country by RV. A hard, memorable, and momentous year. 😉
I love Crazy Talk! Often, though, I wished it led to more Crazy Actions.
Hello from deep in Austenland, Hampshire, England (the streets here are named after Austen characters). ?
I LOVE crazy talk – it causes all kinds of adventures. Crazy talk led to my leaving a salaried job to go freelance (2006), me and my husband being missionaries in Asia (2008-10), adopting children from foster care (2013)… DEFINITELY vote for an adventure! Do it!
Oh, and we keep a notebook specifically for recording all the crazy ideas in! Very, very fun.
So fun!
I am the Crazy-talker in this house. From second child, to third child, to adding a second story to our first house, to selling and building new, to selling and buying a farm, to selling and buying a bigger farm with a Victorian in need of restoring, to getting miniature horses, to getting miniature sheep, to starting my own business again, and again, and this time a small school, to painting kitchen cabinets red, etc. The problem is, I’m never told “no”. And so, we find ourselves buried in all of the crazy ideas we dove into. We have accumulated stuff, ambitions, and a multitude of unfinished projects that have become burdens.
However- I would not have wanted it any other way. My newest crazy-talk is to unload the clutter that has come with these ideas… and focus only on the ones that bring us joy and are within our capacity to accomplish!
I drive my husband crazy with crazy talk but it keeps us young, our children close and our world full of experience.
Yes! And that crazy talk led to my husband joining the US foreign service. We have now lived in China for several years and are moving to Belgium in a few weeks. It is pretty awesome. For us and the kids, I am happy that we made our “crazy talk” a reality. Good luck.